The ecclesiastical code was revised, important questions were adjudicated, and the action of previous conferences on the licensing and ordaining of women was reviewed under appeals, and confirmed.

Henry W. Warren, Cyrus D. Foss, John F. Hurst, and Erastus O. Haven were elected bishops.

Warren is a native of Massachusetts; his natal day is January 4, 1831. An alumnus of Wilbraham Academy and of Wesleyan University, he entered the ministry in 1848, taught natural science in Amenia, N. Y., and ancient languages at Wilbraham, joined the New England Conference in 1855, preaching sixteen years in its most important pulpits; he was pastor of Arch Street Church, Philadelphia, two terms of three years each, St. John's Church of Brooklyn three years, and he had been pastor of Spring Garden Street Church, Philadelphia, Pa., three months when elected bishop.

Foss, born in New York, January 17, 1834, is an alumnus of Wesleyan University, and he entered the ministry in 1857. after having been professor and later principal in Amenia Seminary. His ministry was entirely spent in the New York and New York East conferences, during which he was two terms, of three years each, pastor of St. Paul's, New York City. From 1875 until his election as bishop he was president of Wesleyan University.

Hurst was born in Maryland, August 17, 1834, and was graduated from Dickinson College in 1854. He studied abroad, and entered the New York Conference as a minister in 1858; after eight years of service he was transferred to the Germany and Switzerland Conference, where he was professor in the mission institutes at Bremen. and Frankfort for five years. In 1871 he became professor of church history in Drew Theological Seminary. He was already known as an author, particularly by his "History of Rationalism: Embracing a Survey of the Present

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State of Protestant Theology," by translations of Van Oosterzee's lectures on St. John's Gospel, Hagenbach's "History of the Church in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries," and of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans in Lange's Commentary. He became president of Drew Seminary in 1873, and filled that position until his election as bishop.

Haven was born in Boston, Mass., November 1, 1820. He was an alumnus of Wesleyan University, and was for some years president of Amenia Seminary. He entered the ministry, filling important positions in New York State. In 1853 he became professor of Latin in the University of Michigan; in 1856 he was chosen editor of "Zion's Herald," and filled that position for seven years, during which he was made an overseer of Harvard University, elected a member of the State Senate and a member of the State Board of Education. From 1863 to 1869 he was president of the University of Michigan, and from 1869 to 1872 of the Northwestern University. The Conference of 1872 elected him secretary of the Board of Education, and in 1874 he was called to the chancellorship of the new University of Syracuse, where he remained until made bishop.

Hunt was elected book-agent at New York. Hitchcock, after long and faithful service, retired to the reward of universal love and reverence, and William P. Stowe was chosen to fill his place as agent at Cincinnati. Fowler was elected a corresponding secretary of the Missionary Society, and James M. Buckley succeeded him as editor of the "Christian Advocate." Joseph C. Hartzell was elected editor of the "Southwestern Christian Advocate," established at New Orleans, and Daniel P. Kidder corresponding secretary of the Board of Education.

The Ecumenical Conference, a most important interdenominational event and the first reunion of the scattered

branches of Methodism, assembled in City Road, London, Wednesday, September 7, 1881. It was divided into two

sections:

Primitive Methodist Church in the United States,

Independent Methodist,

Congregational Methodist,

African Methodist Episcopal,

African Methodist Episcopal Zion,

Colored Methodist Episcopal Church of America,

Methodist Church of Canada,

Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada,

Primitive Methodist Church of Canada,

Canadian Bible Christians,

British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada.

It was estimated that these bodies included nearly six million communicants, and that it would be safe to multiply the number of members by four to ascertain the number of adherents; by this means it was assumed that the conference represented a population of twenty-four millions, The multiplier is too high; three is the highest that can

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safely be used. This, however, would represent nearly twenty millions of people directly or indirectly connected with the movement begun by John Wesley in 1739.

The conference was without legislative authority, and discussed Methodism, its history and results, its evangelical agencies, its perils, and its relation to the young. Under each of these heads specific topics were treated. On the broader field of universal Christianity it considered education, the use of the press, home and foreign missions, and Christian unity. Its effects upon the unity of Methodism in the United States were excellent. The best statement of this fact was made by the revered William Arthur: "People think that nothing particularly practical is being done in this Ecumenical Conference. They are only in the engine-house, where there is not a spool being spun, not a web being woven, and not a tissue being dyed. There is nothing being done but generating power, and therefore there is nothing practical being done. Sir, below the sky the two most practical things are human thought and human feeling, and what you have been doing here is making large thoughts and holy feelings; and what is practically being done is that here the large man is becoming larger and the small man is becoming less small; that here the broad man is becoming broader and the narrow man less narrow."

CHAPTER XXII.

STABILITY AMID CHANGE AND CONTROVERSY.

THE death of Scott, the first bishop who was the son of a Methodist preacher, took place on the 13th of July, 1882. He was a minister eighteen years before the great division, and to the last prayed for and promoted fraternity and unity.

The "Methodist," founded twenty-two years before, had been helpful in various reforms and to the church at large, had stimulated the journals owned by the denomination, and also tended to check the manifestation of a tyrannical spirit in their management. But the reforms which it advocated having been effected, and the "Christian Advocate" being conducted as a free forum for the discussion of all questions affecting Methodism, the circulation of the "Methodist" greatly declined, and its owners offered to sell its title, good will, and assets to the Book Concern. Accordingly it was purchased by the agents at New York, and ceased to exist in October, 1882.

Bishop Peck, whose services give him a sure place in the history of Methodism, died in Syracuse in May, 1883. Endowed with the oratoric temperament, in early and middle life he was famous as a preacher and platform speaker and was also known as an author.

The Rev. E. II. Gammon, a native of Maine, a superannuated minister, who retired early because of a malady